I’m 37.
I don’t think anyone my age seriously thought that the US and USSR would ever actually get into a war. We weren’t hiding under our desks like our parents did in the 60s. But the Cold War was a plot device or story back drop in so many movies, TV shows, books, comics, videogames and other media that it was somewhat of a plausible “what if” scenareo. The USSR was a big, secretive, Evil Empire with weapons roughly equivalent to our own, scary accents and an opressive idealogy conflicting our own. But not so cartoonishly one-dimensionally evil like the Nazis so you could actually have stories with a bit of complexity.
Red Dawn was a film that reflected those times. Sure, some of the dialogue seems a bit cheesy these days and the military strategy and tactics don’t really stand up to scrutiny. But I still think it was a great movie for what it was.
A remake where the invaders are our largest trading partner just doesn’t have the same plausibility IMHO.
[BrainGlutton ]
It was hard enough to swallow the premise of Russia making a non-nuclear ground invasion of the U.S.
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They didn’t just invade the tiny town of Calumet, Colorado. Powers Booth’s character explains the entire scope of the war. A surprise attack of Cuban inflitrators, Spetsnaz commandos and precision nuclear strikes against missle silos, SAC bases and communication centers created enough confusion for 60 Soviet divisions (600,000 to 1.5 million troops) to swarm accross the Bearing Straight and Mexico, occupying half the country.
It doesn’t explain what happened to all our nuclear subs though.